Govindha Govindha Govidha

Often times, people prefer to ignore and be lazy in unearthing the true meaning or the core substance of a matter. Partly it is due to their lazyness to learn, partly due to their ignorance and partly due to their sub-conscious liking for a funny misnomer and to go with the flow. There are lot of things that have consistenly being loosing their true meaning and have been a object of mockery.

Of late, due to our mixing of languages, there are lot of instances where the original/true meaning is lost and something totally crazy displaces it. Take this phrase for instance, "Avan assaultaa pannuvaan" to convey the meaning "He can do a job with much ease". I was wondering at the word "asaaultaa". Is that Thamizh or English or Tanglish? Certainly Tanglish I would presume. Please let me know if this is found in Thamizh lexicon. But why would one use it that way? "Assault" in English means to attack. So does that mean "He does things by attacking others"? Certainly no. It was not the meaning the guy wanted to convey in the first place. He wanted to say "He can do things with so much ease". This is one such instance where English and Thamizh have been mixed to mean a totally new thing. The word has lost the meaning in a differnt language. This has a bit of relevance to this blog which is about the name Govindha.

Examples like "assault" can be tolerated to an exten. But when people misconstrue names of God, it is really disheartening to see, especially the name "Govindha". It really saddens me when I listen to this name being construed incorrectly in cinemas and medias. Srivaishnava sampradhyam has literally tons of meanings for this particular name. Let us explore the beauty of this name and try to see why people misunderstand the name and what we can probably do about it.

Significance of Govindha: This is one of the 12 main names of Sriman Narayanan that include Kesava, Narayana, Madhava, Govindha, Vishnu, Madhusudhana, Thrivikrama, Vamana, Sridhara, Hrishikesa, Padmanabha and Damodara. Etymologically, "Go" in sanskrit means cow and "vindh" is to find. So "Govindha" means "one who finds the cow" literally. Govnidha also refers to "protector of "Govardhana" mountian from Indra. From this prefix "Go", a lot of names has been derived. "Gopalan (protector of cows), "Gokulam (the clan of the cowheards, also refers to the city where Krishna was raised). Apart from "cows", "Go" also means "vedham", "vaaku", and "king". The thamizh equivalent is "Ko", from which we get "Kovil" (the house (il) of the King - The Supreme Lord).

Govindha in Vrindhavanam: When we think about the name "Govindha", the next thing that strikes our mind is a beautiful scene in Vrindhavanam. Krishna bids good bye to His mother Yashodha daily and sets off to forest with His cattle herd to graze them. He takes care of His cows and buffalos with utmost care. Whenever they are thirsty, He takes them to a nearby pond, He bends Himself down and licks the water and teaches them to drink. The cows immitate their Master's action. Andal sings in her Nachiar Thirumozhi about this in "Ittamaana pasukalai inidhi marithu neer ooti vittu kondu vilayaada vrindhaavanathe kandome". The Supreme being, the creator of the whole universe has no need whatsoever to come down to this profane world, mingle with each and everyone, steal butter and get scoldings from all households. If you stop for a second and think why would He even do all this, it is just to show that He is not the One who is "never reachable" and "never approchable".



Often times, we think of God as someone who is the "Highest, Omnipotent, Supreme, the most powerful , invincible and the most valorus". All the adjectives run into superlatives for Him. So, with all these qualities of Him in our mind, sometimes we get a doubt "If He is in that league, will a poor, ignorant human being like me be able to reach Him? Does all those superlative qualities of Him create a love for Him or just a respect for Him". So, to remove all these questions in our mind, the Supreme being had stepped down from His eternal abode "Srivaikuntam", entered each and every house, yearned and earned the name of a "thief" and at the same time was celebrated as their "special child". He is so approchable for everyone. Even if Krishna is not here as Krishna now, He is present in each and every thing, action, people and mind. The forms in which He manifests are different, but His presence is there in everything.

Parathvam: So all the superlatives qualities of Krishna that we saw above, can be categorized into one umbrella of qualities called as "Parthavam". "Par" is boundary and "Para" is transgressing or crossing boundaries. It signifes that there is no one greater than Him, nothing stronger than Him, nothing invincible for Him, nothing that is beyond His knowledge, nothing that He cannot create, nothing He cannot protect and nothing He cannot destroy. So these parathvam qualities talk about the highest and the infinite. There are some names that are associated with His "Parthvam". For example, Narayanan is one name that signifies that He is the one who supports and protects everyone, everybody, everything (living and non-living).

Sowlabhyam: The second category is "Sowlabhyam" qualities that glorifies the great qualities of making Himself available, approachable and to be able to easily mingle with one and all. It is this quality that is of utmost importance to us, because if not for this, there is no way we can love Him. If not for this, we can, at the most have a respect for Him and may be a fear towards Him, but certainly not love. However, the "Parathvam" qualities are also important because if not for it either, He cannot protect us in the first place. To remember the word "Sowlabhyam" easily, remeber that it means "ease". We know that "sulabham" means easy in Thamizh. One who is easy or sulabham is known as "Sowlabhyan" and thus that quality of his is "Sowlabhyam".





Day to day examples: To give an example of these two qualities in our daily lives, let us say I want to meet the Prime Minister of India, discuss all my problems in my city and get it solved. The reason I want to meet the PM is because only he has the authority to do it. But I cannot go, schedule and meet him as and when I like. He is not readily accessible. On the other hand, I can go and meet my neighbour easily, anytime of the day. But he is as hapless as I am. Though, he is available, the poor guy does not have any power to erect any change. Though the PM has power, he is not approachable. Translating this to the two qualities to sampradhayic parlance, the PM had "Parathvam" but no "sowlabhaym", whereas my neighbour had "sowlabhyam" but no "Parthvam". The one and the only place, these two qualites manifests itself in their highest order is with the Supreme Krishna.

Now, back to our Govindha name. This name is probably the best name that signifies sowlabhayam. Andal had sung this name three times in her 27th, 28th and 29th pasuram in Thirupavai. Andal has another name called "Godha". The name "Govindha" itself has "Godha" in it, take the first and last syllable of "Govindha", we get "Godha" (Kodhai in thamizh). "Godha" means one who shows us the Vedas, One who is the bestower of good speech (vaaku). In fact, Andal chooses "Govindha" name over His most prolific name "Narayanan", just because the name conjures up accessibility and protection by Him to us. She dismisses "Narayanan" name as a lesser name (siru paer). Going one step further would be to realize that more than the person who is being referred by "Govindha", just the chanting of name "Govindha" does more good than the real Govindha Himself. Draupadi got her sarees by chanting "Govindha". He is being referred as"Kurai ondrum illadha Govindha", which means "Blemishless Govindha" but now this name has been massacred by people and still continues to be the favorite object of mockery for many people.


Possible reasons for Confusions: "Govindha" also means that all our sins will be washed away and will be gone to a place of "no-return". I think this meaning was misintrepreted largely to mean that if we chant the name "Govindha", everything we have now will be gone forever, with "everything" referring to weatlh usually. Another reason for this misintrepretation is because of the prefix "Go" that has to do with "gone and not to be seen" connotation in English. This could be just a small factor but to create a confusion there is usually not one factor that stands out. Its a conjoined effort of many such factors. So, finally what is being left with people is the fact that "Govindha" is synoymous with "loser", "stuffs easily gone", "cannot get back". All the above three are true but that is true with sins (papas).

In Tirupathi, people tonsure their hair, offer it to God and become hair-free ("mottai" in thamizh). To the layest of laymen, Tirupathi, mottai, and Thiruman-srichoornam (or more popularly known as "naamam") is associated with loss of everything, starting from hair,wealth and thus their image. A person had hair before and did not wear anything on his forehead. He visits Thirupathi, does mottai and has naamam in his forehead. When he is seen like this, people ask "enna goindha goindha va? When something is being lost, people exclaim "enna pocha? Goindha Goindha va?" Also, when somebody cheats and steals money from people, the guy who is being cheated is asked the question "naamam potutaana"? Perumal Himself has manifested Himself unto us in Thiruman form. It is a mark that to keep reminding ourselves that we are His eternal servants, wearing a Thiruman is one of the most proud things that we can show off. We can definitely boasts ourselves that we are His servants and He is our Master. It is the basic lakshanam of a Srivaishnavite and we should be very happy that we got an opportunity to realize it and wear it.

The original meaning of the name was that He takes away all our sins, but we easily misintrepret to other non-sensical explanations and to make it worse, we stick to it. The worst part is that, people don't even care if there would be a real meaning to it, and even if they had, they are lazy enough to dig deep into its origin. So they just leave it the way it is and just enjoy the funny misnomers. On top of it, the cinemas and the medias, always make money by publicizing what is in vogue.

What we can do?: Finally what we have ended up now is with a shameless truth that a beautiful name is being spoiled continuously. Alteast, people who know it should stop using this name in a non-sensical way. Thats the least they can do. Going further, please educate people who are capable of learning and willing to change. Rumor, gossips and bad things spreads like a forest fire, whereas good-will, trust and hardwork takes a lot of time. So let us share it and spread the true meaning wherever we can and to whomever we can. If we understand the meaning then we would certainly not use it twice in a mocking fashion as in "Go-indha, Go-indha", rather we would be chanting His name thrice "Govindha, Govindha, Govindha", like how Andal did.